THE PULSATING PHYSICAL PRESENCE OF SOPHIA TISE by MAT GLEASON

The abstracting of nature into pure form and values is still a relatively new thing in art. Movies are older than abstract painting. Film is an older approach to art than paintings that reduce nature to line, shape and color on a flat plane. In this sense, Sophia Tise is hardly the carrier of a grand tradition. She is better described as a member of the third generation of artists embracing the delicate middle ground between that which we visualize and that which renders the structures of what we see.

But Tise is the furthest thing from a cold formalist. There is a sensuality in her brushstrokes and shaped passages that pulsate with physical presence. She is an artist in love with the sensual and delicate interplay that comes with recalling the sense of a thing beyond the optical experience of that thing. The joy of painting abounds for both her and the viewer.

There is plenty in her refined abstraction to see as historically continuing the quest of a previous generation or two. Tise operates in the fertile territory of ignoring any quest for a pure abstraction to find where it best blends with the natural world around us.

One can see the continuation of the groundbreaking work of Nicholas DeStael in these pictures. A calm take on some of DeKooning`s mad landscape brushwork is here refined into delineated passages of color and contrast. The organic energy of her compositions connects her to these Modern masters.

Unplanned beyond intuition, Tise completes her paintings with a finesse that has a sense of thousands of hours in the studio knowing just when to add the fabulous finishing touches.

Coagula Curatorial June 2020

“From an arts loving Brit family and profoundly influenced by annual visits to rugged Cornwall, artist Sophia Tise comes at Conversations in Color utilizing a tremendous skill for extracting the ultimate from her elemental tools, be they raw canvas, linen, cut-outs, natural mixed media, string, anything with a patina, coarse, smooth, jagged or impasto encrusted.
A sensual line permeates the work, while never compromising a shaman-like use of abstract depth and three-dimensionality bending the line between painting, assemblage and sculpture. From bold coloration to subtle detail, the work speaks to a searching beauty while never seeming gratuitously “beautiful”. Look for a progression of imagery inherent in the work. It`s there.
Roy Oldenkamp gallerist/curator Neutra Institute”